There is an ever-increasing need to address and restore contaminated soils in Brown-Fields around the world. A “Brown-Field” site is land that was once used for industrial purposes or for commercial uses and is now contaminated with unacceptable concentrations of hazardous waste.
Soil contamination or soil pollution is caused by the presence of human-made chemicals or other alterations in the natural soil environment. The soil contamination is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals, or improper disposal of waste. The most common chemicals involved are petroleum hydrocarbons, poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, solvents, pesticides, lead, and other heavy metals. The soil contamination is correlated with the degree of industrialization and intensity of chemical usage.
The concern over soil contamination stems primarily from health risks, from direct contact with the contaminated soil, from vapors from the contaminants, and from secondary contamination of water supplies within and underlying the soil. Mapping of contaminated soil sites and the resulting cleanup are time consuming and expensive tasks, requiring extensive amounts of geology, hydrology, chemistry, computer modeling skills, and geographic information systems (GIS) in Environmental Contamination, as well as an appreciation of the history of industrial chemistry.
Current methods for soil remediation are chemical specific, while others apply to a broad range of pollutants. Techniques for soil remediation fall into the following general categories; biological, chemical, and physical treatments such as extraction, immobilization, and thermal methods. These current methods are expensive and cost prohibitive and result in the fact that many of these contaminated lands or Brown-Fields have been abandoned. Current methods are not only cost prohibitive, but can also be time consuming and ineffective, meaning they fail to completely remediate the property. It is therefore the objective of the present invention to introduce a new cost-effective process for the total remediation of contaminated sites or Brown-Fields in the most economical and quickest possible manner.
The present invention incorporates the physical process of the excavation of the soil, with a chemical process, which chemically binds, immobilizes and utilizes the contaminants rendering them harmless. Additionally, the chemical process, while causing molecular change, produces thermal benefits as well. The present invention can be performed either onsite (preferred) or offsite to the Brown-Field site. The present invention completely removes the contaminates from the site whether completing the process on or off site. By excavating the contaminated soil, the present invention provides one of the fastest and most timely remediation processes. Upon curing of the new polymer concrete product, the remediation process is complete. Both the Brown-Field and the new polymer concrete products are clean and harmless.